The China-centric video sharing platform is expanding with a new international app and an English version of its website – with no identity verification (for now at least)
Right. Because what people are just clamoring for is MORE draconian over sight on their public video platform.🙄
As soon as I saw this news, I signed up there in order to see how it is like. I’m yet to find non-Chinese-language content, as I don’t really know Chinese. I mean, I do know from memory some very specific Chinese ideographs (given my special interests) such as maotouying (猫头鹰 lit. “Cat-headed eagle”, which is one of the words for “owl”, aside from xiao 鴞) which was, unsurprisingly, my first search in Bilibili. (I also know words and ideographs such as hong 红 red, ni hao 你好 greetings, ren 人 person/people, among others that wouldn’t suffice for me to, say, buy 500g of bread in a bakery during some trip to China, lol)
The platform quite of reminds me of xiaohongshu (Red note), including the same emoji pack.
Then I tried to search for words with Latin alphabet (e.g. “Ereshkigal” and “Pomba-gira”) and the results were nothing directly related to my search query, with Bilibili returning me a list of recommended videos based on my watch history (owl videos) instead.
One thing I liked is the lack of notifications (TikTok used to push notifications a lot) and the (momentary) lack of advertisements, maybe because there aren’t companies from my geographic region (Brazil) buying ad placement there yet.
As a Brazilian, I’m sincerely wishing to see more Chinese and nonwestern alternatives to things, including but not limited to video platforms. I’ve been boycotting YouTube for two years and counting, for example, and it would be interesting to see a Chinese alternative to it other than the westernized TikTok (which is nowhere near to Chinese-only Douyin and its likely better/educational content). And, of course, I’m also rooting for PeerTube to gain traction, because it’s native to Fediverse.
Thanks for explaining your experience, I’ll check it out once in a while to see what they have to offer.
Billig billig
I’d rather not use these services than switch to a Chinese state service. I don’t need to learn the unique ways this is equally as bad as YouTube. ID verification does not have to overt or direct, to exist, given enough data to correlate.
Then again the CCP has absolutely no jurisdiction over you.
Bet its not allowed inside china, just like TikTok.
I trust this as much as I trust big American tech platforms.
Considering how much damage Google et al do, I legitimately wonder whether China could even do worse, and I’m not even a tankie.
Don’t fall for the proximity bias, china is decades ahead on surveillance and stepping on personal rights. They act as a hive. They care more for what they believe that are they nationals and may look harmless to us non-chinese… but i do fear them.
In any case, I dont see them pressing a button to launch swarms of AI commanded drones to kill every person on a partially AI generated list that they probably already have in their hands, right now… i leave that dystopia to israel alone.
As far as I’m aware, google isn’t enacting a genocide… as far as I’m aware
Maybe not technically “enacting” but certainly supporting/furthering: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/google-reportedly-signs-45-million-contract-with-netanyahu-to-promote-israeli-messaging/ar-AA1LX8Lm
China makes palantir look like freedom respecting software.
Not terribly interested in this video platform as I also don’t use YouTube. I really hope Google gets broken up and I don’t like them harvesting my data and selling it to the US Government any more than I like companies like Bytedance selling my data to the Chinese Government. I am in the US and think we should have established data privacy and data protection laws long before things got to the point they have gotten too.
I don’t know why but “Google et al” made me laugh
Sure, but I’d rather have my info safely offshore in China than to give it right to big brother. I also bet far far fewer ads and more fun commercials because you have no idea what they are about. They are currently destoyjng the natural order in printer ink. I support that wholeheartedly. My Epson inks are 90 and the knockoffs are 20 and work just as well. It’s always temporarily beneficial when player 2 enters the market.
*Edit it does not like vpns. That’s a no for me.
Ah yes, instead of US big brother you give it to offshore Big Brother.
But China isn’t going to sell my data to Uncle Sam to help deport my family (who are legal citizens). So there’s that.
Why would you think that?
When you’re here, you’re family!
Weird, the few times I’ve used it I had no problem with my VPN.
Political censorship is definitely worse so I‘m not going to bother.
Because YouTube doesn’t engage in anything like that ofc.
This is one thing I noticed using Chinese social media. There are almost zero discussions of local politics. Foreign politics is fine though
There is no politics in Ba Sing Se.
Depending on the politic
the same as Tik Tok?
I’ve avoided that platform so yes if I’m understanding you correctly.
BRB, gonna upload something about Tianaamen Square.
They will just remove it
I can’t wait for this to be announced as a threat to national security.
Maybe things change in the future, but right now I see VHS tapes at local thrift shops as being bigger competition to houtube than this.
Ye ‘ol Fail Army or whatever the fuck they call that stream of content now
Gamers Nexus started to print their videos on DVDs and Blurays recently
Y’know, free market
Hey, I welcome any serious competition. Youtube has devolved into a much more censored platform than what we used to make fun of the Chinese for. “Unalive”, “grape”, and several topics that are demonetized on sight.
I found clip.place , a peertube instance really good alternative to YouTube. I am sure there are others.
Thing is peertube is still pretty much new and empty. I didn’t find much content that I would be interested in or even an interesting community. Although I see its potential as a social platform I don’t think it will ever replace YouTube (at least for me) as it wouldn’t give creators the financial incentive to use it.
YouTube barely gives a financial incentive for most creators, that’s why most of them take sponsorship deals and/or use Patreon.
As a gay Uyghur I wonder how this platform is going to work for me?
You will be invited with open arms, mr Cumfart. And then shot, of course. Can’t have any of those pesky gay ass Uyghurs turning our kids gay and Uyghur, now can we?
Ironically I searched for something unrelated and got bombarded with a bunch of BL dramas.
What’s a BL drama?
Bacon lettuce
“boys’ love” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys’_love
Basically gay dramas, supposedly targeted at women.
Boy love drama. The restrictions on homosexual content is overblown, though not entirely fabricated. XHS has plenty of LGBTQ content, for example, domestic and foreign. Not as much as Western social media, to be fair, but also I don’t see people bullying LGBTQ people or creators on XHS.
There’s more restrictions on overt sexuality, straight or gay. Make no mistake, Chinese culture is more conservative in some ways than the West, but it’s not as restrictive as the news makes it out to be.
How many unskippable ads before I can watch a 3-minute video?
If it’s less than 2, I’m sold!
I’m pet Sue there are no ads. At least in China, not sure about the international version.
I just started a video and it didn’t play an ad right away.
Its 1, but the video is 2 hours 39 minutes long. It’s just “HEAD ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!” on repeat.
Coming to a smear campaign near you!
Seems like a natural next step. XHS works well as a social media app across countries and has opened up China to average US citizens and vice versa. I’ve had a lot of good genuine conversations with people, they’ve managed to cultivate a good culture on the app.
As YouTube continues to enshittify, maybe there’s an opportunity for another app with an already large user base to take its crown.
Compared to YouTube, it just means creators can’t pronounce a different set of words.
I already have to use subtitles on youtube because of the amount of indian content that’s not even in hindi so doubting that the difference is huge.
Maybe if the American tech ceo’s have some competition they will stop acting like they own everything.
